14 Holiday Centerpiece DIYs To Make Your Dining Table More Elegant On A Budget

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Looking for decorating tips for Christmas on a budget? Whether you're hosting the whole family for the holidays or just want a festive touch in your dining room for the season, a holiday-themed centerpiece does the trick. But the price tags on premade centerpieces are often frightful, not festive. Making your own decorations is not only a cost-effective solution, but it also lets you put your personal stamp on it. From various types of DIY candleholders to wreath-based designs, these DIY centerpieces are varied enough that everyone can find an option they want.

Many of our homemade centerpiece ideas use Dollar Tree materials to keep the costs low. For other projects, you might already have many of the components on hand that you can repurpose into the centerpiece. You may even be able to collect some of the materials, like pine cones and pine boughs, from your yard, cutting your costs even more. Despite being low cost, all of these centerpieces create elegant displays that elevate your Christmas dining room decor to celebrate your festive feast in style.

Dollar Tree sells metallic-finished chargers, like this gold charger with a beaded rim, that work for the base of this centerpiece. You'll also need three Floral Garden clear cylinder vases, which can be the same size or different sizes. To create a wintery look, fill the vases one-third full of salt or artificial snow, and place a strand of fairy lights on top. Cover the lights with pieces of pine, artificial berries, pine boughs, and other holiday items. For a lush finish, tuck pine boughs and other little holiday pieces around the glass vases.

This DIY centerpiece pairs a pine wreath and a metal lantern-style candleholder — this is a beautiful way to repurpose an old wreath, so see if you have a wreath and a lantern already. If not, check at Dollar Tree for options like this metal bow lantern. Use a plain wreath or something that's already decorated, similar to this Christmas floral wreath. From here, you can personalize it with the candle of your choice (flameless is the safest option), additional accents on the wreath, and a bow or floral arrangement on top of the lantern.

To add height to your holiday centerpiece, use a raised bowl as the base with floral foam filling the bowl. Glue three taper holders onto the floral foam, and them surround them with winter greenery, holiday flowers, or berry picks, choosing options that drape over the edges of the bowl. Then, you can add any color of taper candles you want to the holders. Battery-powered options, like GenSwin flameless taper candles, offer a safe option. For an inexpensive substitute, spray paint a Dollar Tree plastic trifle bowl and give it a quick holiday glow-up with Rust-oleum metallic spray paint.

Not sure what to do with all of those bottle brush trees you see everywhere? Make a DIY bottlebrush tree centerpiece. Grab scrap wood (or glue together Crafter's Square wooden crates to make a platform). You can stain or paint the wood. Then, hot glue several bottlebrush trees to the base. It looks best to choose different sizes, shapes, and colors of trees. To make the tree scene glow, add a strand of battery-powered fairy lights. You can also add bows or mini decorations to the trees or dust the entire scene with flour to serve as artificial snow.

You can choose from many unique candleholders that are the perfect addition to your dining room table, but this holiday centerpiece is simple, festive, and cost-effective. The base is just two green foam blocks glued together with the top edges trimmed for a rounded effect. Place the foam blocks on a rectangular charger if you want a defined base. Position two or three battery-powered pillar candles on the foam, and then start hot gluing ornaments of different sizes and shapes around the foam. Fill the gaps with holiday floral picks from Dollar Tree.

If you want ideas for nature-themed DIY holiday centerpieces, this project uses a Brother Sister Design Studio wood bundle from Hobby Lobby to surround a small cardboard container. The wood pieces are flat on one side and connected by rope, so you can cut it any length. You can repurpose a small box or any other container. Add a little floral foam inside, and go crazy adding holiday-themed floral picks. To keep it affordable, collect pine cones or pine boughs from outside, and use twigs that you find for the outside of the container.

Instead of lots of little ornaments, grab one giant Christmas ball ornament, like the Ashland oversized Christmas bauble from Michaels as the focal point of this DIY centerpiece. A wood plaque (like this unfinished rectangle plaque from Amazon) painted green gives you a sturdy base, and a wedge of floral foam props up the ornament at an angle. Then, add greenery, pine cones, and winter decorative picks underneath (and hot glue some to the top of the ornament). Weave fairy lights into the greenery for a warm glow, and finish it off with a coordinating bow. You can also add a few smaller ornaments into the greenery.

For a long, full centerpiece down the middle of the table, zip tie two 16-inch Christmas trees (like these mini trees from Michaels) together with their bottom trunks overlapping in the middle. Fluff out the branches, and add extra pine stems if needed to fill it out. Ornaments, berry picks, silk flowers, and other inexpensive Dollar Tree floral items also help fill the gaps — tuck them in throughout the length of the centerpiece. Grab ribbon (red or plaid works well for trendy Ralph Lauren-inspired holiday decor) from the thrift store or Dollar Tree to tie bows as accents.

This Dollar Tree creation uses a small, decorative mirror as the base with four plastic reindeer ornaments (like these Wonder Care reindeer figurines from Amazon) glued to it. Then, glue a small glass plate onto the backs of the reindeer in the center. Since everything is a different color, you may want to spray paint everything to make it uniform. Then, position a jar candle on top. You can also add little pieces of greenery, florals, or flower for artificial snow around the legs of the reindeer, or tie little ribbons around their necks. A glitter paint finishing coat would add elegant sparkle.

Instead of buying expensive decorative trees, cover cone-shaped floral foam (like this FloraCraft cone-shaped foam from Amazon) with pine cones for a custom look. You can collect pine cones yourself (you should bake your pine cones before decorating with them to kill any pathogens or insects) or buy them — cinnamon-scented pine cones add fragrance to your table. Alternate which direction you glue the pine cones onto the tree, and add greenery to fill gaps. You can also use loops of ribbon, wooden beads, sequins, paper strips, or other materials you have on hand to cover the tree instead of pine cones.

Keep your centerpiece simple with customized taper candles. Grab taper candles and simple taper holders from Dollar Tree (spray paint the holders if desired to get the look you want). Then, order UPINS wax craft sticks (or something similar) to create the little bows. Since the wax strips are bendable, you can manipulate them into bows or any other holiday shapes. Position each piece on the candle, and use a little heat from a hair dryer to melt it slightly onto the taper. Arrange the tapers in the holders by themselves or with greenery at the base.

The foundation of this craft is a wide, clear glass vase like the wide pillar glass vase from Dollar Tree. In the bottom, pour Epsom salt or artificial snow as deep as you want it. Then, position a pillar candle (flameless is the safest option) in the center. Little berry picks and evergreen boughs add to the look. You can personalize this craft by changing the color of the candle or the decor inside. Tie a ribbon into a bow around the vase, or add a frosted or glittery spray to the outside of the vase. 

Start with clear cylinder vases from Dollar Tree (as many as you want in any size). Next, position a few pieces of artificial pine boughs in each vase, and fill it with water. Then, top it off with artificial berries or cranberries along with a floating candle on top. Coat any artificially-colored berries with a bit of Mod Podge first, to ensure the color won't dissolve in the water. Or, opt for a low, wide glass bowl as the vessel, and put several floating candles in it.

To create the snowman for this centerpiece, paint two round glass vases or bowls white, with one slightly larger than the other. Glue the two together, and add accents, like a painted-on face, ribbon scarf, and top hat. Then, you'll need a small wreath with an opening about the same size as the bottom vase. You can buy a premade wreath, or grab a wreath form from Dollar Tree and make your own with greenery from your yard. Spray it with artificial snow or add your favorite accents, like ribbons, pine cones, and berries.